Work C.2.2
al-Battānī
شرح كتاب الأربع مقالات في أحكام علم النجوم
Sharḥ Kitāb al-Arbaʿ maqālāt fī aḥkām ʿilm al-nujūm
Alternative title: al-Maqālāt al-arbaʿ fī l-qaḍāʾ bi-l-nujūm ʿalā l-ḥawādith.
A commentary on the Tetrabiblos in the version of Ibrāhīm b. al-Ṣalt/Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (A.2.2) without the glosses by Thābit b. Qurra. The two surviving manuscripts suggest that this commentary circulated in North-African Christian communities (cf. the Coptic numerals in the colophon of MS Escorial, RBMSL, ár. 969 and a foliation with Coptic numerals in MS Berlin, SBPK, Sprenger 1840). In chapter 24, al-Battānī refers to two earlier treatises of his, namely the Kitāb Maṭāliʿ al‐burūj fī mā bayna arbāʿ al‐falak, which he calls ‘our first book’ (kitāb-nā al-awwal), and a Bāb Taḥqīq al‐ittiṣālāt, which is likely to correspond to the Risāla Taḥqīq aqdār al‐ittiṣālāt listed by Ibn al-Nadīm; these treatises are probably identical to chapters 55 and 54 of the Ṣābiʾ Zīj, which itself is not mentioned. The final chapters and tables were disseminated without reference to the original author as part of Ibn Abī l-Rijāl’s astrological compendium Kitāb al-Bāriʿ fi akhām an-nujūm (finished in 1037 in Tunis).
Content: This commentary is organized in 40 unnumbered chapters (bāb) and constitutes a running commentary, not clearly distinguishing between source and commentary, on selected chapters of Book I (4, 8 and 10–14) and Book II (3, 5, 9, 10, and 13) and on the complete Books III and IV of the Tetrabiblos. The titles given for most chapters of Book I differ slightly from those in the extant manuscripts of the Ibn al-Ṣalt/Ḥunayn version, while the titles for the other books mostly correspond. The last three chapters discuss a practical application of chronocrators as presented in Tetrabiblos IV.10; for these al‐Battānī includes tables after the colophon that give the revolution of the months based on a year comprising 13 months (MS Escorial, f. 80r). Another set of tables displays terms, decans and triplicities ‘according to the method of Ptolemy’ (idem, f. 80v).
Note In chapters 10 and 36, both witnesses contain identical passages of unknown origin that disrupt the linguistic style and may be assumed to have been transferred from the margins into the main text. These are references to at least one other manuscript (‘wajadnā fī nuskha ukhrā’) which highlight significant differences encountered in the sources (in particular, a variant division of the oecumene and alternative astrological interpretations for oppositions).
Text: [Escorial, RBMSL, ár. 969]
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Bibl.: Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist (ed. FlügelGustav Flügel, Kitâb al-Fihrist, 2 vols, Leipzig: Vogel, 1871–1872, vol. II, p. 268:7; ed. SayyidAyman Fu’ād Sayyid, Kitāb al-Fihrist li-Abī l-Faraj Muḥammad bin Isḥāq al-Nadīm (allafa-hu sana 377 H), 4 vols, London: Al Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2009, vol. III, p. 215:15; tr. DodgeBayard Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadīm. A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, 2 vols, New York / London: Columbia University Press, 1970, vol. II, pp. 640; not mentioned under the entry ‘al-Battānī’). — Moritz Steinschneider, ‘Die arabischen Uebersetzungen aus dem Griechischen. Zweiter Abschnitt: Mathematik’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 50 (1896), pp. 161–219 and 337–417, here pp. 207–208; GALCarl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 2 vols, Weimar / Berlin: Felber, 1898–1902, vol. I, p. 222; GALSCarl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. Supplementbände, 3 vols, Leiden: Brill, 1937–1942, vol. I, p. 397; SuterHeinrich Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke, Leipzig: Teubner, 1900, pp. 45–47 (no. 89); GASFuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 17 vols, Leiden: Brill / Frankfurt am Main: Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 1967–2015, vol. V, pp. 287–288; vol. VI, pp. 182–187; vol. VII, pp. 158–160; DSBCharles C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 14 vols plus 2 supplementary vols, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1970–1990 article ‘al-Battānī’ by Willy Hartner; MAOSICBoris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Mathematicians, Astronomers, and other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and their Works (7th–19th c.), Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA), 2003, pp. 64–65 (no. 137, does not mention this commentary); BEAThomas Hockey (ed.), The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, 2 vols, Dordrecht: Springer, 2007 article ‘Battānī’ by Benno van Dalen; Edward S. Kennedy, Benno van Dalen, George Saliba and Julio Samsó, ‘Al-Battānī’s Astrological History of the Prophet and the Early Caliphate’, Suhayl 9 (2009–2010), pp. 13–148; Franco Martorello, ‘Sul commento di al-Battānī al terzo libro del Quadripartito Tolemaico’, in Franco Martorello (ed.), Studi sull’arte dei decreti delle stelle. In memoria di Giuseppe Bezza, Sarzana / Lugano: Agorà & Co., 2022, pp. 59–89.
Ed.: Edition of part of the commentary on Book III in Martorello (with Italian translation).
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